1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technology for driving assist.
2. Description of the Related Art
Navigation devices or driving assist devices that provide route guidance or driving assist according to a driver's driving skill or driving proficiency level have been known.
For example, a navigation device that provides guidance according to a driver's driving skill at a junction is described in Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2009-115717. Specifically, a navigation device is mounted in a moving vehicle and includes a storage unit, a deciding unit, and a presenting unit. The storage unit stores a degree representing a driver's driving skill and a degree representing difficulty merging at a junction. When the moving vehicle is at a predetermined distance before a junction, the deciding unit decides guidance content for the junction based on a proficiency level and a degree of difficulty of merging stored in the storage unit. The presenting unit presents the guidance content.
Further, a driving assist device capable of providing more appropriate driving assist at the time of merging according to a driver's characteristic is described in Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2007-133672. Specifically, the driving assist device acquires terrain information of an acceleration lane, a vehicle state quantity, environmental information, and a driver's driving characteristic information, and estimates a merging start position and an arrival time based on the acquired information. Furthermore, a vehicle speed when an own vehicle reaches the merging start position and a current position of a vehicle on a main lane which is expected to reach the merging start position at the same time as the own vehicle are obtained), a situation of a neighboring vehicle is detected, it is determined whether the neighboring vehicle is at such a position that the neighboring vehicle is expected to affect traveling of the own vehicle when reaching the merging start position, and appropriate warning or operational support is given when it is determined that the neighboring vehicle is at such position.
Further, a navigation device capable of performing a route search in which a driver's current proficiency level is accurately reflected is described in Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2005-106475. Specifically, the navigation device includes a search condition designating unit that designates a route of a search target, a map information storage unit that stores road map information of a search target, a searching unit that searches for a route reaching the destination under the condition designated as the search condition based on the road map information, and displays the searched route thereon, and a proficiency level information storage unit that stores proficiency level information related to a driver's driving skill, wherein the searching unit searches for a route of a driving condition that satisfies the designated condition and corresponds to the driver's proficiency level based on the condition designated by the search condition designating unit and the driver's proficiency level information stored in the proficiency level storage unit.
However, in the navigation devices and the driving assist device disclosed in the above-mentioned documents, in the case of vehicles shared and used by a plurality of drivers such as rental cars or company cars, there is a problem in that it is difficult to provide route guidance or driving assist according to the driver's driving skill or driving proficiency level.
In the case of company cars, unlike rental cars used by a large indefinite number of drivers, drivers (for example, employees of a company) are predictable to some extent. Hence, if a certain operation is performed to identify the driver every time the driving starts, it is possible to identify the driver. Then, route guidance or driving assist corresponding to the identified driver's driving skill or driving proficiency level may be realized. However, in this case, the operation to identify the driver must be performed at least every time the driving starts and the operation may take time and can be inconvenient.